AIG-GATE: The World's Greatest Insurance HEIST

Segami

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Wed Feb-10-10 03:09 PM
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AIG-GATE: The World's Greatest Insurance HEIST

There is no law against gambling, but there is a law against fraud. In Watergate, a special prosecutor was appointed to bring criminal charges; but times seem to have changed.

Rumor has it that Timothy Geithner is on his way out as Treasury Secretary due to his involvement in the AIG scandal that is now unraveling in hearings before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Bob Chapman writes in The International Forecaster:

Each day brings more revelations of efforts of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs to hide the details of the criminal conspiracy of the AIG bailout.... This is a real crisis on the scale of Watergate. Corruption at its finest.

But unlike the perpetrators of the Watergate scandal, who wound up looking at jail time, Geithner evidently has a golden parachute waiting at Goldman Sachs, not coincidentally the largest recipient of the AIG bailout. At least that is the rumor sparked by an article by Caroline Baum on Bloomberg News, titled "Goldman Parachute Awaits Geithner to Ease Fall." Hank Paulson, Geithner's predecessor, was CEO of Goldman Sachs before coming to the Treasury. Geithner, who has come up through the ranks of government, could be walking through the revolving door in the other direction.

Geithner has been under the House microscope for the decision of the New York Fed, made while he headed it, to buy out about $30 billion in credit default swaps (over-the-counter derivative insurance contracts) that AIG sold on toxic debt securities. The chief recipients of this payout were Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank. Goldman got $13 billion, roughly equivalent to its bonus pool for the first nine months of 2009. Critics are calling the New York Fed's decision a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been put through bankruptcy proceedings in the ordinary way. In a Bloomberg article provocatively titled "Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows," David Reilly wrote:

The New York Fed is a quasi-governmental institution that isn't subject to citizen intrusions such as freedom of information requests, unlike the Federal Reserve. This impenetrability comes in handy since the bank is the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed's bailout programs. It's as though the New York Fed was a black-ops outfit for the nation's central bank.

more

<http://www.truthout.org/aig-gate-the-worlds-greatest-insurance-heist56809>

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aquart

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Wed Feb-10-10 03:14 PM
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1. I would like to believe that is true.

And that Obama won't simply replace one Chicago Boy with another.

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RUMMYisFROSTED

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Wed Feb-10-10 03:15 PM
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2. Clearly one of the greatest earmarks ever.

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Segami

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Wed Feb-10-10 03:15 PM
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3. Actions will speak volumes

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OnyxCollie

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Wed Feb-10-10 03:27 PM
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4. AIG and the DOD.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4241598#4242677
Contractors are required to provide workers’ compensation insurance, known as Defense Base Act (DBA).(61) The cost of this insurance is covered by the cost-plus feature of the LOGCAP contract. An audit conducted by the Defense Contract Audit Agency of KBR’s insurance premiums from 2003 to 2007 found that KBR paid $592 million.(62) An audit by the Army Audit Agency revealed that KBR’s costs for DBA for fiscal year 2005 amounted to $284 million, yet KBR’s insurance provider, American International Group (AIG) paid out only $73 million in claims.(63) The Army Audit Agency concluded “the cost of DBA insurance substantially exceeded the losses experienced by the LOGCAP contractor.”(64)

61 Grasso, V. (2009). Defense Logistical Support Contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan: Issues for Congress, p. 9
62 Ibid
63 Ibid, p. 10
64 Ibid

Thieves.

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